Having grown up in a rural community with very limited education resources, it was a matter of luck that I attained university education and managed to be in a position to have a decent livelihood. This is in a background of a community that girls barely went through elementary school and very little has changed in the 21st century. Efforts by government and other actors have seen education become better and adopted by rural communities but constraints in resources continue to cause inequalities for marginalized communities. Most families are also resource constrained to contribute any resources required for development of education. For these reasons, I have been building ideas step by step to support education out of the mainstream school system and employ community participation in the process. So far, I have worked with various organizations and community volunteers to run mentorship and life skills training for girls and young women in the local community. These trainings have assisted the girls to focus on pursuing education against social norms and gender stereotypes that hinder their pursuit of better futures. We have also collaborated with parents and local leaders to embrace the importance of educating all children irrespective of their gender and also supporting schools to acquire necessary resources needed to enhance quality learning. We foresee a future that education is embraced and supported both in learning institutions and in the communities.
The innovation is centered on supporting education in a rural community set up where lack of resources and social norms have hindered children and youth especially females from reaping the benefits of education in a modern world. We have codesigned a plan together with the communities to support the areas that are deprived of development. These areas include retaining girls in school, supporting literacy and numeracy skills for learners in elementary schools, mentorship programs for students and those out of school and in January 2026, we are supporting acquisition of digital skills for out of school girls by sponsoring their training within the community. We have also worked with local leaders to educate communities on better farming methods, income generation through agriculture and climate smart farming. These programs are delivered through interactive community based learning and hands-on education on farms to achieve results directly for communities.
Our approach is community centered meaning that, we do all our learning within the community. From schools to farms and community spaces. We have also made it participatory so that knowledge does not flow from top to bottom but everyone is able to share what they know about a particular topic. School and youth programs, for example are led by teachers, learners and community leaders collaboratively and with consensus. Farmers also provide lessons to fellow farmers during practical farming education facilitated by experts. In this way, the communities are in a position to share the learning among themselves whether a workshop is held or not. Teachers on the other hand are also able to continue with learning support and mentorship as part of ordinary school lessons based on what is done during the community learning processes. From one village to another and one school to another, the information spreads and we get feedback which helps in designing every next learning process and programs that are needed in the communities.
At this point, and in response to changes in education due to technology advancement, we have introduced the digital skills, employability and entrepreneurship skills for youth out of school which begins in January. We hope to expand it to include leaners in elementary and high schools based in the communities we work with since none of the schools have digital labs. The current school curriculum has digital literacy as mandatory yet the government cannot manage to provide requirements to public schools. Only private and schools where parents afford such resources are acquiring the skills leaving rural and those in resource constrained communities in the dark.
Our approaches are simple and can be replicated in any community especially in developing countries. The solutions are based on well researched and documented data on status of education in resource constrained communities and those that still discriminate against girls and women in acquisition of education and skills. With data at hand, you can apply our programs and approaches to fit into the particular community with modifications to respond to their specific needs.
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